Up to 1.5 million daily giveaways will begin Oct. 2 and run through Nov. 7 at more than 10,000 company-owned and licensed U.S. stores, Starbucks said. When the promotion ends, Starbucks expects to have given away more than 50 million songs.

"It's a great moment for us when you look at the overall relationship we have with iTunes," Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, said in an interview with the Seattle P-I. "We feel it's definitely groundbreaking."

Lombard said the artists and record labels are providing the music for the promotion, which is "not costing us anything." The deal is expected to drive traffic to Starbucks and Apple's iTunes store, where customers can buy additional tracks after sampling various artists. With single songs costing 99 cents apiece on the iTunes store, the giveaway is valued at roughly $50 million.

Lombard said the partnership would help Starbucks, which last year put its Hear Music catalog on iTunes, become more of a destination for coffee and music lovers. Starbucks has increased its promotion of music and other media, such as books and movies, as a way to differentiate itself from rivals McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts, which have peeled away customers with lower-priced coffee drinks.

While still highly profitable, Starbucks has seen its stock price decline in the past 12 months as the company has not met Wall Street's expectations because of intense competition and rising dairy and employee costs. Starbucks, in its most recent quarterly earnings report, had a $158 million profit on $2.36 billion in revenue. But the company's stock price has fallen 19 percent in the past 12 months.

Two analysts who cover Starbucks called the iTunes giveaway "interesting," and both said that while the deal is unique, it likely will not significantly raise profits.

"They are just trying to draw some attention," said Dan Geiman of Seattle-based McAdams Wright Ragen. "It will never be big business for them. ... It will be incremental income for them, and it's generally a complimentary business."

Patricia Edwards, a Seattle-based analyst with Wentworth, Hauser and Violich, said the giveaways could drive an older demographic to iTunes.

Starbucks' "core customer is not the teeny-bopper who downloads a lot of music. Their core customer is someone between 30 and 40 who may not have ventured out into the digital world," Edwards said. "It's a good way to introduce that customer to an online experience."

Edwards, a self-described music download addict, said getting someone turned on to iTunes is "kind of like getting hooked on caffeine."

Starbucks declined to disclose its financial arrangement with Apple should the coffee company drive sales at iTunes, but Edwards believes Starbucks is receiving some kind of promotion fee.

Lombard declined to say how many cards would be available at each Starbucks store, but he said the company would "make sure every store has more than enough cards to provide to customers."

The giveaway begins the same day Starbucks will offer a new service at its Seattle and New York stores that lets customers buy music through their iPhones, Apple's new iPod Touch or a laptop via a free wireless Internet connection. Starbucks also is rolling out a "Now Playing" feature, which allows customers to instantly download and buy the music being played in the store. Those services will be expanded to other markets later this year and into 2008.

Starbucks customers must pay to log on to the T-Mobile service offered in most U.S. stores to access anything else online.

Also on Oct. 2, the coffee company will begin selling iTunes Digital Release Cards, which contain a full album of music, and start offering a Starbucks Card Plus Two. The card program will allow customers to load money on a card that can be used to make purchases in Starbucks stores. Once a customer registers the card online, the person will receive two free song downloads of their choice from the iTunes store.